An American in Leeds

Get your mitts on this My fellow Americans living abroad! Unless you've been living under a rock (lucky you), you know that it is an election year. Living abroad is no excuse not to vote! You have to request your ballot from the Federal Voting Assistance Program . It will ask you which state you lived in before you moved abroad, then will tailor what you need from there. If you want to vote in the Presidential primary, you need to get cracking. PS This applies if you need an absentee ballot as well.

Look at these beauties I've been messing around with making croissants for the past year. I hadn't quite gotten them right. But I finally cracked them and now I'm going to tell you how I did it! Originally I was using this recipe from Good Food magazine. It worked out okay, but my croissants never doubled in size when proving. They were too dense as well- more bread-like than light and flaky. I was not satisfied, and figured I could do better. Starting with typing the question "Why are my croissants too dense?" into my search engine of choice, I eventually narrowed the answer down to two possibilities: 1) kneading too long at the very beginning and 2) something something something about dough composition that was not quite right. Basically, something I was doing was turning everything too gluteny. Sooooo, I went hunting around for a recipe that would address both of these issues and turned up this one from Weekend Bakery*. Its answers to the two questi...

Autumnal Hat Heeeeeey there! How ya doin'? Been a while, I know. (By the way, I seem to have lost my ability to determine when to use "a while" and "awhile". Is this a thing that happens when you're old? You forget how to use parts of speech you had no problem using for decades?) What's new? Well, I'm still happily married to the same Yorkshireman. We're coming up on 5 years together in a couple weeks. Two more years, and he and my PhD will have occupied the same amount of time in my life, albeit non-concurrently. I suppose the biggest development is that I'm no longer a research scientist. This was a tough development to accept. I had realized that I didn't want to pursue a research career a while back. I wanted some sort of work-life balance that doesn't really exist in the higher levels of research science. Also, I hate writing grants. The part that was tough to accept was that the decision to not pursue a research care...

Remember that man I mentioned  over a year ago?  Well, reader, I married him. Then embarked on the emotional roller coaster that is a spousal visa application. Luckily, I got my visa, and was able to join him. Also luckily, he did not have a crazy wife in his attic that set the house on fire. I have returned to Leeds after being away for over a year. I've been back for just over a week, and it's been interesting getting back into my UK groove. There's the usual things, like re-programming myself to look right then left when crossing the street, and re-learning the money denominations. But, like when I first moved here in 2008, it's the little things that trip me up. How to use the washing machine. Recipes being in weights instead of volumes. Coriander instead of cilantro. One of the more illuminating things that has come to my attention to me is the importance of an address. It proves you belong to a place. The question of "Do you have a piece of official m...

Okay, so off the bat: I suck. I admit it. It's been over a year since I updated. I completely missed blogging anything from my last year in Leeds. I have two excuses. 1. I acquired a boyfriend and 2. I had to finish up my projects at work, and then find a new job. First, I started dating a wonderful man almost exactly a year from the end of tenure in Leeds. I won't bore you with my gushing about him (that's what my paper journal is for, 16-year-old-me!), but it did put some pressure on trying to squeeze as much as possible into that year. We manged to get a trip to  Rome , several trips to  London  and a trip to the  Green Man Festival  in before I had to come back to the US. I also went to  Paris , but didn't bring him with me. Second, I had to finish up my projects at work, and then find a new job. Again, I won't bore you with the details of finishing up, because seriously zzzzzz for anyone outside of the field. I did present at two more confere...

I may as well get this out of the way: this has become a crafting blog. You probably have already figured that out, but I like to be honest and up front about these things. Now that that is done, let me show you what I've been working on! I started a pair of gloves in September 2009. I finished all but three fingers of the right hand one, then lost interest. After finishing Brian Slade , I dug out the glove, and finished it. Pattern: Knotty, by Julia Mueller, from Ravelry. I cast on for the left hand glove, and got it started. Hopefully, it won't take me over a year to finish it. I am also embarking on a quilt. I have never made a quilt before. It's nothing fancy- just a random patchwork quilt. I am using a pattern, since I have never done this before. Ollalieberry Ice Cream Quilt , from Alicia Paulson. I bought the fabric about a year ago, and shoved it in a bag. Not sure what made me decide to drag it out and make the silly quilt right now. I probably should have titled t...

Don't forget to give the servants the day off! Originally, I was going to go away for Christmas like I did last year. But then the weather started acting wacky. And then I kept getting sick with one cold after another. In the end, I decided to stay put. I roasted a chicken, using Julia Child's recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking . It turned out amazing, probably because, like all of Julia Child's recipes, it requires a ton of butter. She should have titled her book Screw It: Use the Damn Butter, You'll Thank Me Later. I also worked on sewing up a skirt. I got all but the finishing details done yesterday. I did the belt loops and buttons today to finish it up: Sorry for the bad picture- I finished it after the sun went down, so no natural sunlight. The pattern is Beignet from Colette Patterns. Grey gabardine with cotton/ synthetic floral lining and purple plastic buttons. I've made this skirt before , although I don't remember the belt loops being as t...